Vinidhra Vaitheeswaran

The Law Society of Ontario (LSO) brought a motion for a stay of a Divisional Court costs order, pending the determination of its motion for leave to appeal the Divisional Court's substantive decision.

The Divisional Court had allegedly ruled on costs without affording parties an opportunity for submissions.

The Court of Appeal granted the stay, applying the three-part test from RJR-MacDonald.

The court found a serious issue regarding both the substantive decision and the costs order, irreparable harm to the LSO if required to pay out monies that might be unrecoverable, and that the balance of convenience favored the stay, especially given its limited duration and the LSO's automatic entitlement to a stay if leave to appeal is granted.

The Law Society of Ontario (LSO) investigated a cheating scandal involving the November 2021 licensing exams.

Based on statistical anomalies, the LSO voided the applicants' exam results and their registration in the licensing process without holding a hearing.

The applicants sought judicial review.

The Divisional Court held that while voiding the compromised exams was a reasonable administrative measure, voiding the applicants' registration and imposing regulatory sanctions without a hearing breached procedural fairness.

The court quashed the punitive sanctions and remitted the matters to the LSO.

The applicant union sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision upholding an inspector's refusal to order the respondent employer to restrict the operation of an overhead crane to workers holding a specific mobile crane certificate.

By the time of the hearing, the construction project had concluded, rendering the underlying dispute moot.

The Divisional Court declined to exercise its discretion to hear the moot application, finding no special circumstances.

In the alternative, the Court held that the Board's interpretation of the occupational health and safety regulations was reasonable.

The application was dismissed with costs.

The appellant, a youth, appealed his conviction for sexual assault, raising three grounds: ineffective assistance of trial counsel, erroneous dismissal of a s. 278.3 Criminal Code application for production of the complainant's therapeutic records, and improper curtailment of cross-examination.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the appellant failed to establish a miscarriage of justice due to counsel's performance, that the trial judge correctly dismissed the s. 278.3 application as the records were not shown to be "likely relevant" with case-specific information, and that cross-examination was not improperly curtailed.

The court upheld the trial judge's finding of non-consensual sexual contact and the inapplicability of the honest but mistaken belief in consent defence.

The accused was found guilty of manslaughter following an armed home invasion that resulted in the fatal shooting of an unarmed victim.

The court found the accused was a party to the robbery and had subjective foresight that a loaded gun would be used, though it was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he was the shooter.

Weighing the significant aggravating factors of an armed home invasion against the accused's youth, first-time adult offender status, and harsh pre-sentence custody conditions due to lockdowns and COVID-19, the court imposed a sentence of 8.5 years.

After applying Summers and Duncan credits, the remaining sentence to serve was 39 months.

Following the 44th general federal election, Candidate Alejandra Bravo applied for a judicial recount in the electoral district of Davenport.

During the recount, disputes arose regarding whether to open envelopes containing spoiled and unused ballots for several polling stations.

The court issued extemporaneous rulings, allowing some envelopes to be opened where there were significant discrepancies or confusion on the Statements of the Vote, while declining others where the evidence of unreliability was insufficient.

Ultimately, Candidate Bravo terminated the recount pursuant to section 307 of the Canada Elections Act, and the original election results were confirmed.

The applicant, a candidate in the 44th General Election, applied for a judicial recount under section 301 of the Canada Elections Act after losing by 76 votes.

The court found that the threshold for a recount is low and based on a benchmark of accuracy.

Evidence showed numerous errors on the Statements of the Vote, including uncounted unused ballots and numbers that did not balance.

The court granted the application and ordered a judicial recount.